Monday, May 02, 2005

Aren't you glad you don't work for me?

Okay, by now you should have figured out that I have a bit of a mean/cruel streak to me. I admit I find humor in other people’s pain and humiliation. It isn’t uncommon to hear me say, “That’s funny in that ‘it happened to someone else’ kind of way.” Most of my minions know about this streak and are not surprised when they see me take some kind of pleasure in one of their coworkers anguish. I even have a couple that try to earn favor from me by playing pranks on their coworkers. The rest of the management staff is somewhat disturbed by my dark sense of humor, but they’ve come to understand, if not appreciate, it.

Today, my most loyal and devout minion, discovered no one is safe from my sense of humor. She comes up to me and tells me that her monitor is broken and that the picture is bouncing and vibrating on her screen. I advised her all she had to do was wiggle her head at the same speed as the picture and she’d be able to read it fine. She was amused by that, not as much as everyone else that heard it, and definitely not as much as I did. I go to check on her monitor. Yeah, there is something seriously wrong with it. It looks like it is stuck in some kind of hyper-degauss. She was going to need a new monitor. So I called in a ticket for it and had her switch to a new desk to work at until it was repaired. After a couple of hours, they deliver the new monitor. Before she has a chance to do switch desks, I check it out to make sure it works, it doesn’t, and the picture is very blurry. So blurry you cannot read it. It was at that point I had an epiphany. I proceeded to go over and reprimand her for not switching back to her desk when they where finished. She gave me a ton of good and valid excuses as to why she had not; I however, put on my angry face and proceeded to continue my berating.

She heads back to her desk quickly and I wait and watch. She sits down, turns on her computer goes to sign in, and stops. She stares at the monitor for a couple of seconds, turns to look around and catches me giving her the “evil eye” so she turns around and starts working. I’m chuckling now, because there is no way in hell she can easily read her monitor. Finally after 15 minutes of this, I go walking over as she is sitting there squinting at the monitor trying to adjust the settings.

Me, “What are you doing? Why are you not working?!?!”

Minion, “Mr. Contagion, I can’t read my monitor.”

Me, (looks at monitor) “Looks fine to me, get to work.”

Minion, “Mr. Contagion, It’s really blurry I can’t read it.”

Me, (looking even more closely at monitor and thanking god I am farsighted) “I can read it just fine. This is just an excuse for you to slack off on a Monday.”

Minion, “You can’t be serious, no one can read what it says… It’s blurry!)

Me, (waves to another minion in on the joke) “Look at her monitor and tell me what you see.”

Insider Minion, “uhhh… four emulators, her e-mail the dashboard system, some other programs running”

Me, “Does it look blurry to you?”

Insider Minion, “No, seems okay to me”

Me, “Thank you. (Turns to original minion) Looks like you need to get new glasses. Now if you don’t sit down and start working I’m going to have to take disciplinary actions, understood?”

Minion (sheepishly) “Yes, Mr. Contagion.”

(Minion starts working. I’m barely able to keep a straight face)

Me, “MINION! What are you doing? Did I not tell you to get to work?”

Minion (shaken) “Mr. Contagion I am working, I’m working as best as I can!” (Her eyes start to mist)

Me, “How the heck are you working on this computer? That monitor is excessively blurry. There is no way you can read that, go back to the other desk and get to work… NOW!”

My minion then proceeded to walk indignantly to another desk to work. In the meantime, I call tech support to come and fix her monitor. I don’t know what is wrong with this one, but I got a headache trying to pretend to read it. I’m sure my minion has a screaming migraine after the 20 minutes she spent trying to work on it. She’s laughing about it now. See it’s funny when it happens to someone else!